Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) No. 2002-182811 discloses a software support system for displaying a plurality of window screens on the display of a computer and performing respective processes in those window screens. The software support system includes ID acquisition means that acquires an ID unique to the window screen being worked currently from among the unique IDs issued to the window screens, a user support database that accumulates support information about the window screens in condition where they are correlated with the IDs unique to the window screens, search means that searches the user support database based on the ID which is unique to the window screen being worked currently and acquired by the ID acquisition means, and output means that outputs the support information searched for.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) No. 11-316636 discloses a manual display device including recording medium reading means that can read manual information of a guidance manual and an operational manual respectively from an attachable/detachable recording medium recording those manuals, guidance manual display means that reads the guidance manual by using the recording medium reading means and displays it, operational manual storage means that reads the operational manual by using the recording medium reading means and stores it, updated information acquisition means that acquires updated information of the operational manual via a network, and operational manual display means that can read the operational manual from the operational manual storage means and display it and acquire the updated information of this operational manual by using the updated information acquisition means and display it.